Courier-Post from Camden, New Jersey • Page 6

6A COURIER-POST, Wednesday, July 11, 2001 CAMDEN INVESTIGATION: SHOOTINGS. Anthony Scarduzio had long, successful rise hefore fall newsstand. Mayor Milton Milan's Inaugural Hf good guy. He'd do anything for you if he could." Scarduzio installed a chain link fence surrounding Cascl-no's back yard and also helped By KIM MAIALETTI Courier-Post Staff CAMDEN So many people were so full of hope in 1998 when leaders of the maligned Camden City Parking Authority chose Anthony Scarduzio to be their agency's executive director. The head of the Camden City Chamber of Commerce called Scarduzio "a man of vision." The chairwoman of a state agency overseeing the Parking Authority said Scarduzio had gone "above and beyond the call of duty" in pulling the agency out of a million-dollar hole.

Even one of the Parking Authority's harshest critics endorsed Scarduzio gelo Errichetti and George Norcross III, who ascended to become one of the most powerful political bosses in the history of Camden County. Scarduzio was known in Democratic circles as a loyal soldier who delivered when called upon to raise money for the party. Norcross said Tuesday his contact with Scarduzio over the past few years was not so frequent as It was two decades ago because both men were getting older and had families. "I've known Tony and his family for almost 20 years, and we are deeply saddened by this tragedy," Norcross said. "I always considered him a good and loyal friend." Scarduzio also served on ex- ScarduzioHandgun discovered in ex-official's car SCARDUZIO land Cascino, 69, a job at the municipal golf course in Washington Township, where Scarduzio lived.

Scarduzio, 47. was married and had two sons. He graduated in 1971 from St. Joseph's High School In Camden, where he was known as the class clown. He began working for the city's Public Works Department in 1972 and landed fit the authority in 1978, when the agency was resurrected by then-Mayor An- In the parking lot of Aaron's Ice "T3 Kill rfg fZ iv if I Continued from Page 1A Bowen "soup to nuts" police protection, but he declined it.

Adding to the pressure, the parking authority voted Friday to create its own investigative committee to explore deals that Scarduzio had been negotiating on the agency's behalf. "He must have just flipped out," said family friend Tony Mar-sella of Washington Township. Marsella said Scarduzio also was agitated that the parking authority began exploring ways last month to break an agreement to pay him a $130,000 buyout for leaving his job. Scarduzio, of Scotch Drive, Washington Township, already had been paid $65,000. A second payment of that amount was due Jan.

1. Authority officials said they did not know about the state corruption investigation when they made the agreement and were looking for ways to get out of it. "That really made him upset last week," said Marsella, a former Democratic assemblyman and former chairman of the Gloucester County Democratic Party. "He's gone now. Whatever he did, he paid the ultimate price.

He killed himself. I hope for the sake of the wife and children that they honor the contract." Meanwhile Tuesday, Anthony "Butch" D'Alessandro, whose son discovered Scardu-zio's body inside the front door of the elder D'Alessandro's Will-iamstown house, described the horrific scene. "He blew half his head off," said D'Alessandro. "There was blood on the ceiling. "And this whole wall was full of blood," he said, pointing to stains still visible after the room was scrubbed clean early Tuesday.

D'Alessandro said he saw a two-by-four in a police car that he thinks Scarduzio may have used to beat Bo wen. Scarduzio once hired Bowen to do some remodeling at his house, D'Alessandro said. "He (Bowen) needed the money, and Tony let him work on his house," said D'Alessandro. "He cuts the guy a break, and then the guy nits on him. That ain't right." Although Medical Examiner Gerald Feigin has completed an autopsy on Scarduzio, he has not issued a cause of death.

"The autopsy is complete," Feigin said, "but sometimes you can't do an autopsy without an investigation. Certain things come up in the autopsy that raise other questions. When committee, was a Democratic committeeman In Washington Township and served on the Washington Township planning board. Ho ran for Washington Township Council in 1996, but lost in the June primary. "Tony was always involved with politics," said longtime friend Frank McGuckin while he was buying a cigar at TJ's Newsstand in Washington Township on Tuesday.

"He was a political animal." Scarduzio would stop at TJ's three or four times a week to grab coffee and a paper on his way to work in Camden. On Monday at TJ's, a detective took away a photograph of Scarduzio and a group of men who routinely gathered at the Authorities also met with Scarduzio. "We talked to him and told him we were aware of the threat." Hornaday said. "We took the threat seriously." She dismissed allegations made by Bowen's attorney, Bowe, that the state should have acted sooner In taking action against Scarduzio. Bowe claimed that a quicker investigation would have spared his client harm.

Even if the state had charged Scarduzio, Hornaday said, he most likely would not have been in jail and could have still reached Bowen. Scarduzio was most likely facing two or more counts of official misconduct, a second-degree crime with a maximum 10 years in prison, being barred from holding a government office for life and a $150,000 fine, Hornaday said. Also, court papers and police reports turned up an odd arson connected to both Scarduzio and Bowen. On March 18, 1999, someone set fire to a barn on Bowen's property behind the ice cream parlor. Firefighters arrived to find the structure engulfed.

Bowen kept equipment and supplies from the ice cream parlor in the barn, according to township Fire Marshal John Spangler. The barn and its contents were destroyed. "We determined a flammable liquid was poured on the floor," Spangler said. Investigators found footprints in the ground near the barn and tracked them to a nearby residential development under construction. The footprints ended there, according to Spangler, who added that the arsonist may have had a getaway car in the development.

Investigators ruled the fire was arson. The case is open; no arrests have been made, police said. But Bowen made it a point to note the fire in the lawsuit he filed against Scarduzio and other parking authority officials. Scarduzio called Bowen the day of the fire and said he had seen another parking authority official, Peter McHugh, near the barn that day, the lawsuit states. Bowen reported that to Washington Township Police.

Scarduzio was spreading the rumor, the court papers allege, in an attempt to play McHugh against Bowen. In an interview earlier this year with the Courier-Post, however, Scarduzio said he was only joking with Bowen about seeing McHugh near the fire. Scarduzio instead claimed Bowen started the fire. Three years later, the hope has faded. On Monday, Scarduzio apparently shot and beat a former employee who blew the whistle on corruption at the agency, then turned a gun on himself in an apparent suicide.

Scarduzio, the target of a criminal Investigation, was facing official misconduct charges in relation to his dealings at the authority. His is a story of a man, born and raised in Camden, who rose from the trenches of the Camden County Democratic Party to become someone people could turn to for everything from a job to getting a fence installed. "He knew a lot of people," said Hill Cascino, a neighbor for more than 20 years. "Tony was a hit Joseph Bowen was shot on Monday they are answered, I will sign the death certificate." More details emerged Tuesday about the increasingly strained relations between Scarduzio and Bowen, once such good friends that they were pictured in Puerto Rico hoisting beer glasses in a toast. Scarduzio got Bowen his parking authority job in May 1997 as property manager.

But the lawsuit Bowen filed in October with fellow employee Thomas Del Rosario, a systems specialist, said things soon went sour. In 1998, the suit says, Bowen and Del Rosario began noticing irregularities in the collection of meter funds. The next year, Scarduzio asked Bowen to open a stock brokerage account in his name. Scarduzio would then give him cash to deposit, essentially laundering money, the suit claims. Bowen, 50, who lives in Sewell, said he refused.

But he said he began to notice a string of other possibly criminal offenses. The state also was starting to look into parking authority practices. Scarduzio was forced to resign May 31 from the parking authority because of the allegations swirling from the state investigation and lawsuit. Authorities have confirmed that Scarduzio had cooperated in a larger probe of the parking authority. The scope of the investigation and any other targets were not clear, although Scarduzio had spoken to the FBI.

But it was Bowen's lawsuit filed last that really riled Scarduzio, who called the suit bogus. The handgun found Tuesday was discovered after the Glouces- His wife, Edna, sleeps with a loaded, Derringer near her pillow. The TV stand in the living room is guarded by a Colt Cobra pistol, gleaming with pearl handles and nickel plating. But that's not all. By the back door, two shotguns stand ready in cases.

The one Scarduzio used "to blow his head off," said D'Alessandro, was "a pump gun," a shotgun with an 18-inch barrel similar to those used by police. The other shotgun was not loaded. At least three smaller pistols were in the house, and they were not legally registered, D'Alessandro said. His wife has been frequently ill, suffering from complications of a stroke, and he said he has not had time to register them. He maintains and carries the weapons, D'Alessandro said, because "I always have cash on me.

I never wrote a check in my life." Throughout the past 30 years in Gloucester County, he has worked in the produce business, the used furniture business, and at one point owned a small restaurant, dubbed Butch's Little Ponderosa. iVW, "There was a picture here of all of us guys." McGuckin said, pointing to a blank spot on the wail. "Wo look like the Sopranos." About a mile away, a steady stream of people, many with platters of food, filed In and out of Scarduzlo's Scotch Drive homo. A woman who answered the door at tho house refused to comment. Neighbor Jim Kantner remembered the friend who moved Into the neighborhood at the same time 24 years ago.

"We golfed together; as couples we'd go out to dinner together," Kanter said. "Ho was a happy-go-lucky, easy-going neighbor, a guy that would always make you laugh." FOX Philadelphia JOSEPH BOWEN BoweilSued two employers Continued from Page 1A he was suffering retaliation for lodging equal employment opportunity complaints. Judge Joseph McGlynn Jr. found Bowen's case groundless, ruling in favor of the Navy. In fact, McGlynn wrote in his decision that Bowen was the one retaliating for perceived slights.

"It appears that Mr. Joseph Bowen Jr. embarked on a course of conduct designed to intimidate and harass the shipyard Command Security personnel with the single-minded and avowed purpose of destroying the career of the Command Security Chief, as well as the subordinate personnel," McGlynn wrote. In May 1997, Bowen was hired as a property manager at the Camden Parking Authority, an independent city agency that oversees and operates two garages, 10 lots and 800 meters. He was fired in August 2000.

Two months later, Bowen and co-worker Thomas Del Rosario filed a 50-page lawsuit in state Superior Court alleging they suffered retaliation for blowing the whistle on what they claimed was illegal activity at the agency. Scarduzio, who headed the authority at that time, denied the accusations and said Bowen and Del Rosario simply were disgruntled employees. "They neglected their duties," Scarduzio said. "They were a disgrace, these guys." Such friction between Bowen and Scarduzio was an about-face from what has been described as a close friendship. Scarduzio also claimed Bowen attempted to steer business to his personal associates, and Scarduzio said he gave evidence of it to the Camden County Prosecutor's Office last fall.

Greg Reinert, spokesman for the prosecutor's office, could not confirm or deny Tuesday whether Scarduzio turned over such evidence. He added that any information would have been forwarded to the state Attorney General's Office. While Bowen may have had rocky relationships with employers, he seemed to have no problems with his neighbors on Di's Court in the Severan development of Washington Township. They said he was once active in the homeowners association and was the subcontractor who landscaped the development when it was built. "He's always been a worker in the neighborhood," said Robert Poksay, a retired eye doctor who lives across the street from Bowen's townhome.

"He's always very pleasant." Bowen has a wife, Joan; a daughter, Dana, 22; and a son, Nicholas, 14. He also operates a landscaping business and keeps his equipment in three trailers in a field behind the ice cream parlor where he was beaten and shot. Bowen owns the ice cream parlor and the house next door, where Warren Plank is the tenant It was Plank who called 9-1-1 when Bowen showed up bloody on his doorstep Monday. "I hope he's OK," Plank said. "He's a real nice, mild mannered person who never bothers you.

He's just a great guy." Staff writers Kim ilford and Tim Zatzariny Jr. contributed to the report Vfi.S S. 1 i RON KARAFINCourier-Post Frank McGuckin said Anthony Scarduzio 'was always involved In McGuckin talked about Scarduzio while at TJ's Newsstand In Washington Township. Store manager Tom Asher listens. if RON KA RA Fl NCourier-Post Cream In Washington Township.

ft sion of Criminal Justice, said, "A lot." One investigation witness, Warren Plank, who lives next to the ice cream shop, told police that Bowen said Scarduzio attacked him. Scarduzio had recently threatened Bowen's life through a third man. Hornaday said, however, that the state did not have enough evidence to prosecute Scarduzio for the threat. But authorities believed Bowen was in enough danger that they offered Bowen protection, including relocation. Bowen declined taking such a drastic step, Hornaday said.

Instead, he requested that police drive by his home on Di's Court in Seweil more frequently. "jar 1. xJiik. Mi Colorful D'Alessandro not shy about his arsenal ter County Prosecutor's Office searched the Buick left at the D'Alessandro house in the 1900 block of Pitman-Downer Road in Will-iamstown. The car is registered to Scarduzio and his wife, Janet, of the Turnersville section of Washington Township.

Prosecutor Andrew Yurick said in a written statement that investigators were unable to determine immediately if the handgun was used to sh(xt Bowen. Ballistics tests have been ordered. Yurick would not release the make, model or caliber, say-, ing it would "jeopardize this investigation." When asked what was left to investigate now that Scarduzio was dead, Emily Hornaday, a spokeswoman for the state Divi He knows people think his weapon collection is odd. "They think I'm a nut," he says. "But they don't (mess) with me." Former Assemblyman Tony Marsella says "some people visualize Butch as a nut." But they like him, Marsella says, "because he fights for people." D'Alessandro's attorney, Michael Fritz, allows that D'Alessandro "has more weapons than the average person." But he calls D'Alessandro "a real original" and "a true American." Throughout his career in politics, D'Alessandro always joked that he kept a list of the politicians he would shoot if he ever knew he had only a short time to live.

"We were always joking," he said. Many of the people on his hit list are his friends, he said. "We would fight. We would make up. And it would be over.

It was fun in the old days." And he had no idea that some day, an old friend would break into his home and use one of his guns to commit such violence. "He was a nice guy," said D'Alessandro of Scarduzio. "I dqn't understand this. I feel sorry for him, and his family." 1 i -mm- By ALAN GUENTHER Courier-Post Staff MONROE Anthony "Butch" D'Alessandro says everyone knows he has a gun collection that would make the National Rifle Association jealous, and he's not afraid to help his friends. Even so, he has no answers for police who are investigating why his buddy and political ally, Anthony Scarduzio, chose D'Alessandro's home to stage a bloody end to his life.

Perhaps, with D'Alessandro, 72, out of the home on a doctor's visit, Scarduzio knew there could be easy access to weapons at the D'Alessandro residence. A tough-talking Democratic activist who learned his street smarts growing up in South Philadelphia, D'Alessandro has been a cornerstone of the rough-and-tumble Gloucester County politics for more than 30 years. On Tuesday, he described his personal arsenal, which has been temporarily seized by police. On his side of the bed, D'Alessandro sleeps near a stainless steel, snub-nosed, pistol. RON KARAFINCourier-Post Anthony 'Butch' D'Alessandro of Monroe points to the rear door where Anthony Scarduzio apparently broke Into his house.

D'Alessandro lays a carpet of newspapers Irr the room for his dog Bruno..